Using Webkinz in a First Grade Classroom

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March 19th, 2010 admin Posted in Webkinz | 66 Comments »

Have you ever heard of a toy that sold over a million units for the first time in fourteen months without the company of parents never spend money to advertise? And that is only sold in certain specialty stores (and can not be purchased in many popular toy stores) However, these toy pets are sold at a rate of over ten thousand each week. The last time I checked Ebay, the site had more than ten thousand of these toys on sale. As you can see, this pet toy is very popular with more than five hundred thousand customers who have "adopted" for children between the ages of five and twelve. The name of this toy is Webkinz.

I first discovered several weeks ago Webkinz. After a day of teaching first grade, my wife came home with that gleam in his eyes that tells me he has thought of a new and unique way of educating their students in first grade. She told me that his class had taken a pet frog named "Froggie" and that the children were very excited. I thought a pet would be big frog in a first-grade classroom and wanted to know who they feed. She told me food "Froggie" would require money the children could raise online through the interactive website pets. I was confused, until he told me that the frog was actually a pet toy called Webkinz.

As I had never heard of a Webkinz, I was interested in learning more. Webkinz is produced by the Ganz company based in Toronto, Canada. This is a small stuffed animal a little larger than the size of a baby hat. There are about thirty five different types of Webkinz that can be bought / adopted as pets. You can adopt pets that include pandas, cats, poodles, pigs, monkeys and frogs. Webkinz pets can only be bought for adoption through the specific independent gift and toy stores. The adopted Webkinz comes with a secret code that is used to register the toy pet and gain access to its highly interactive world in cyberspace. In this world in cyberspace can name and feed the pet, the design of your room and raise money through interactive games that can be used to develop the life of the pet toy and history. Online activities are designed to teach children to become responsible, nurturing pet owners and to save and budget. The company now sells Ganz Webkinz charms, clothing and cards.

My wife certainly proved correct in adopting the pet toy frog for the classroom. His first graders loved to play and learn with "Froggie mascot" of its kind approved. Some of the educational activities in their classroom using the included writing Webkinz frog with descriptive paragraphs with illustrations, to investigate the tree frog red eyed and math activities that sometimes use the Webkinz website interactive. The class even wrote a letter to the company Ganz, suggest ideas for future designs Webkinz pet toy.

However, it was his last class activity surprised me most. He asked the class how many of these toy animals that had passed at home. When the counting had stopped, his twenty five students said that they owned four hundred twenty-one Webkinz.

Not yet announced pet toy base certainly has great appeal.